Outcome of key vote in Lebanon disputed by rival Christian factions

BEIRUT (AFP) - Lebanon's Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun claimed victory for his faction in key parliamentary by-elections yesterday, but the ruling majority refused to concede defeat claiming voter fraud.

In a televised speech Aoun said that his party's candidate, Camille Khoury, beat former president Amin Gemayel, a prominent leader of the anti-Syrian ruling majority in the polls in the Metn region, a mountainous Christian heartland northeast of the capital.

"We have been informed about the victory of the candidate Camille Khoury. I hope that everything remains calm," Aoun said.

He added that there were attempts to nullify the results from one of the polling stations because of reported irregularities and urged his supporters to gather outside his headquarters in a northern Beirut suburb.

But Gemayel, leader of the Phalange Party who was running to replace his slain son Pierre Gemayel, refused to admit defeat and demanded a rerun of the vote in one mainly Armenian region where he claimed voter fraud.

"We want elections to be repeated in the Burj Hammud district," Gemayel told his supporters gathered in his hometown of Bikfaya.

He said there were reports from that area of people not living there or deceased casting votes.

Aoun's spokesman Antoine Nasrallah told AFP that Khoury had won by a close margin of several hundred votes and that Aoun had asked his followers to gather in Jdeideh "in order to prevent any pressures on vote re-counting operations."

The outcome of the poll is expected to set the tone for presidential elections due to be held in September.

In the by-elections in Beirut, the candidate of the ruling majority Mohamad Amin Itani also claimed a landslide victory as expected.

The by-elections were held to replace two anti-Syrian lawmakers killed this year in attacks blamed by the Western-backed majority on former powerbroker Damascus, which supports the Hezbollah-led opposition.

The two murdered MPs were industry minister Pierre Gemayel, a Christian who was gunned down in a Beirut suburb on November 21 last year, and Sunni Muslim Walid Eido, who was killed in a car bombing in the capital on June 13.